


Moving on is not what life's all about

by owlaholic68



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, Introspection, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 08:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13994802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Reuse, Reduce, Recycle.Move on from the past, eventually.





	Moving on is not what life's all about

Sometimes the world was just like that.

It twisted and drove knives into good people’s backs, it drowned children and let the Commonwealth’s best hope for a better future get torn apart by raiders and Gunners and their own people.

But then it urged flowers to bloom, plants so corrupted by radiation that they became something beautiful. It gave one woman enough of a break to allow her to slowly, painfully, start to rebuild something. Anything, a nail in a board to make a roof over their heads, a fence to keep out the mole rats, a turrets to handle what their smaller guns couldn’t, a real fighting force to protect, of the people for the people, everything.

Sometimes the world wasn’t so bad.

* * *

“You know, it’s ironic,” Julia says, pulling her hat down low over her eyes to guard against the glare.

“Why?” Preston’s voice is almost drowned out by the blades of the vertibird. He coughs once, covering his mouth to block the dust that surrounds them.

She waits to respond until the vertibird takes off, flying away towards the east, back towards the Prydwen. Scribe Haylen had only visited for a day to say her goodbyes, then she was shipping out with the Brotherhood, back to the south. Julia almost succeeds in tamping down her disappointment; this isn’t the first time someone’s left her, and it won’t be the last.

“I read somewhere that the Brotherhood stole vertibird technology from someone else,” she says. Preston follows her back towards one of the Sanctuary houses. “Actually, I heard that they hired someone else to steal it. It’s kind of hypocritical, their attitude about technology, the way they strut around with their giant blimps and death lasers.”

Preston just shrugs. “You know that it’s not the only thing they’re hypocrites about.” He puts on a pot of water for tea. “Anyways, aren’t we all stealing from the past a little bit? There are hardly any settlements that _aren’t_ built on the ruins of something else.”

“I guess you’re right.” Julia looks down at the 200-year-old chipped mug in her hands, picks at a splinter in the 200-year-old chair she’s sitting on in the 200-year-old house she still inhabits, even after all this time. She’s a different person living in the same house, like two photographs taken centuries apart lined up, the differences circled like a game, all of the new scars and fresh wounds highlighted.

“I guess you’re right.”

* * *

The ghouls understand. At least, the Pre-War ones do. It’s the new ones that turn her stomach, and not because of their smell.

“Maybe then people would see that we’re just like humans,” Wiseman says, his gravelly voice full of hope, innocent and naive, like humans wouldn’t hesitate to hurt their own anyways. “Maybe then they’d see that we’re not monsters.”

It stings her somewhere she didn’t know was still sore, and before thinking she snarls, “didn’t help the _fucking_ Chinese Americans, did it? It didn’t help them from rounding them up and _killing_ them, did it?”

“Whoa, Julia,” Hancock says, shooting Wiseman an apologetic and confused look. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” she grumbles, rubbing her head and ignoring the tears that burn behind her eyelids. “Nothing. Let’s go.” She nods in Wiseman’s direction. “We’ll take care of that problem for you.”

Hancock has to run to catch up with her longer legs. “What was up with that? You woulda scared that poor ghoul out of his skin if he had any left.”

She stays turned away. “They tried so much on us,” she says, stopping in the small children’s playground behind the main concrete building of the Slog. “They tried telling us everything. The Chinese are bad. The Chinese people are poor victims, we’re just trying to free them from their oppressors. Then when Canada fell, they focused their propaganda on making us believe that nothing had happened, that they hadn’t just taken over so violently that people were scared to come out of their homes. They stopped trying to sugarcoat China.”

Hancock doesn’t say anything, just lets her speak. He would never understand like she would, he was never there like she was.

“One of my friends, Laura,” she clears her throat, clogged thick with emotions, “Laura Lin. Her great-grandparents were immigrants from China, but she was a citizen. Her parents were citizens. Hell, I think even her _grandparents_ were citizens. Same as me. But one day I woke up and she was gone, shipped off to a concentration camp. All because her ancestors were Chinese. She was a spy, they said. I never believed it.”

“I’m so sorry,” Hancock finally says, “no one deserved that kind of death.”

Julia laughs, bitter and sharp like underripe mutfruit. “Oh, she didn’t die there. I busted her out, got her out of the country. Got arrested for it too, decided to take the army enlistment option instead of rotting away in jail.” She points to a nasty-looking scar above her left eyebrow. “Got this scar when the police officer hit me to try to scare me into bribing him. I didn’t do it, obviously. Didn’t have the money. But Laura, no, she didn’t die there. I like to think she died quickly and painlessly when the bombs fell.”

The sun is high in the sky, casting narrow shadows under the playground equipment. Hancock reaches out and grabs her hand, squeezing it once before letting go. They don’t know each other well enough for him to do more, and they’ll never reach the level of intimacy that would allow him to hug her for more than a few seconds.

“What Wiseman’s trying to do will help, maybe,” she admits. “But the fact is that they shouldn’t have to be seen as humans to not be seen as monsters. The two aren’t separate things, they never have been.”

* * *

It’s just her and Curie tonight.

Curie’s kicking her heels on the porch, a dull thumping sound breaking the night silence. They’ve got a cabin to themselves, set slightly apart from the others, slightly farther away from the main building.

It’s nice that they’ve got this cozy house to themselves tonight. Sunshine Tidings Co-Op can keep itself running with just a few inhabitants now. The remaining ones have all scattered to other settlements: helping to set up defenses at Murkwater, building a bridge to Spectacle Island, shoring up the sides of the Kingsport Lighthouse so it could support more weight.

Julia doesn’t mind Curie’s noise; she’s been developing more “human” traits recently, and it’s a good thing. She knows what Curie will do next: she’ll switch to tapping her fingers, tap-tap, then she’ll brush her hair and wash her face, then she’ll join Julia in bed. So clean, so meticulous, her Curie.

The blanket over her is scratchy but warm. Curie, as a robot, had been programmed with a variety of sewing techniques and garment design capability, and those skills had stuck around in her synth form. Every scrap piece of fabric was meticulously scavenged and saved, every remaining handful of cotton filling or thread tucked away until Curie had sewed a very warm but very light blanket, perfect for travelling in the chilly north of the Commonwealth.

Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. An old mantra that Julia remembers. Goodness knows she’s done heaps of all three recently. But is it enough?

Her mind jumps to Oberland Station, a settlement she had recently helped set up. The crumbling railroad control tower hadn’t been able to support a real extension that would have opened up a decent amount of sleeping space. She’d had to start from scratch.

But was that so bad? They couldn’t rely on Pre-War infrastructure for much longer. One day, soon, it was going to run out. Most of it already did. It was a wonder that Diamond City’s stands hadn’t crumbled to dust yet, or that Goodneighbor’s Old State House’s balcony hadn’t lost more than a few pieces of railing.

Maybe what was needed was a mixture of old and new. _Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue._ Piper would laugh at that one, would chuckle the nickname into Julia’s mouth as she kissed her, would kiss it into the dip of her collarbone.

Back to the mixture. But now Curie slips into Julia’s bed, and she gets distracted again by the goodnights, by the tender embraces, by the thought that they’re safe, Julia could make Curie enjoy this night.

Something old, something new. A centuries-old robot personality in a brand new human body. The perfect equation. The perfect woman, the perfect lover. Perfect, perfect, as good as she’s going to get.

* * *

Now that the Brotherhood has moved on, everyone breathes easier. Julia would never admit it, but the floating hulk of the Prydwen hovering menacingly in the distance made her stays at the Castle tense.

They’re playing a game now, one of skill and reflexes.

“Your turn, Danse.”

Danse is uncomfortable among the motley group, but he’s slowly regaining his sense of self being with them. Julia found him whispering with Nick late one night, caught him eating lunch with Curie, asking her questions and answering her own.

He tosses a stone in the air experimentally before taking a deep breath, winding up his arm, and chucking it over the sea. In a smooth movement, he raises his rifle and the stone explodes.

Julia applauds. Deacon golf-claps.

“Excellent! 5% faster than Madame Piper,” Curie says, stretched out on a blanket, her head on Julia’s lap, watching the proceedings with interest. Piper is to Julia’s left, an arm around her waist. Her red reporter’s cap is on the grass next to them.

“Alright, Deacon, you’re next,” Julia says. There’s no official tally for the game, though Curie has been tracking their progress. She’s in the lead, followed by Preston, who had left a few minutes ago to take care of some small problem with the radio, then Danse.

While Deacon says something about being such a great shot that he had saved the President’s life, which is a complete lie because Julia is sure that Deacon had never met the President, Danse snags a glass of something cold and sits down next to them.

“How are you feeling?” Julia asks.

He shrugs. “Warm. Proud. A solid 8/10 today.”

“Good.” Danse had admitted to having problems adjusting to civilian-style life, especially with the difficulty of knowing that he’s a synth. They’d talked about it one early morning, while the sun had been peeking its head over the Castle walls. Danse had also admitted having difficulty describing and expressing his emotions. He’d sought out Curie for advice, and had found a friend in a similar situation.

It’s good that Danse has been given this second chance. Julia sometimes wonders about what would have happened if Danse had never found out. Or if the Brotherhood had gotten to him before she had, and if he had never gotten the opportunity to discover himself. There’s something relaxed about Danse now, some inner glow under his skin that betrays his happiness, no matter how awkwardly he may express it.

Second chances, she thinks. They all deserve them. Danse, out of the Brotherhood. Curie, in her new body. Piper, with the paper. Nick, with his agency, Deacon with the Railroad, Preston with the Minutemen, Hancock with Goodneighbor.

And her? Her second chance?

She strokes Curie’s hair, turning to press a kiss to Piper’s cheek.

Her second chance. Sometimes the world wasn’t that bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Float On" by Modest Mouse. 
> 
> I am...bitter...about the vertibird thing, can't you tell? Listen, I didn't get killed like 15 times in Fallout 2 trying to get into Navarro to steal those vertibird plans all so the BoS can never mention it ever again.


End file.
